Chapter 11:
Chapter 11
I Was Never Meant to be Your Saviour
It started with the bells.
A sharp, discordant ring cut through the dawn haze like a blade forged from pure malice. The sound pierced the morning stillness with such violence that I barely had time to register its meaning before the glyph alarms followed, pulsing with harsh, flickering blue light that painted my chamber walls in sickening hues.
Liora was already at the window, her sword half-drawn from its sheath, the steel singing softly in the charged air. Her warrior's instincts had kicked in before her mind could process the threat, and I watched the tension coil through her shoulders like a serpent preparing to strike.
"They've hit the nexuses," she said grimly, her voice carrying the weight of a thousand battles fought and won.
I was moving before she finished speaking, my body responding to the urgency in her tone. I grabbed my coat from the chair where I'd draped it the night before, scattering the maps from Krael's Hollow that still lay scattered across my desk like the remnants of a fever dream. The parchment crinkled under my hasty movements, the ink still fresh from hours of desperate study.Varis burst into the chamber without ceremony, his usually immaculate robes disheveled for the first time since I'd known him. The sight of the composed archmage in such disarray sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the morning air.
"Three sites," he rasped, his normally melodious voice reduced to a harsh whisper. "Simultaneously. Southridge, Marn's Vale, and Thornbridge Crossing."
The words hit me like physical blows, each location a piece of a puzzle I was only beginning to understand. I froze, my mind racing through the implications faster than my heart could keep pace.
Southridge. That was near the iron mines, where the kingdom's weapons were forged and the earth itself bled metal. Marn's Vale supplied food to half the region, its fertile fields feeding thousands of mouths. Thornbridge had no obvious military value, but it sat at the junction of two leyline routes like a spider at the center of its web.
All three targeted at once. The precision was breathtaking in its audacity.
Too clean. Too precise. Too familiar.
I felt the chill before I even voiced the terrible realization clawing at my thoughts.
"They're copying me," I muttered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.
Varis's eyes narrowed to pinpricks of suspicion. "Explain."
I shoved the maps aside with trembling hands, revealing the nexus diagrams I'd sketched during my sleepless studies. The lines and circles seemed to pulse with their own life, mocking me with their clarity. "The sabotage patterns, they're mirroring the same structural weaknesses I corrected at Krael's Hollow. These aren't random strikes. They're designed for me to notice, crafted like a message written in blood and fire."
Silence filled the chamber like a held breath. Then Liora spoke, her voice tight with barely controlled anger, "You think they're baiting you."
"They know exactly how I work," I said, my voice growing stronger with each word. "They understand my methods, my thought patterns, my weaknesses. They're forcing my hand, making me dance to their tune."
Hours passed in frantic study, the three of us hunched over maps and diagrams like scholars possessed. My fingers traced the flows between the towns, mapping connections that most mages would never bother with. Trade routes snaked across the parchment like veins, supply lines pulsed with imagined life, and even old leyline tunnels long considered inactive whispered their secrets to my desperate searches.
The pattern emerged slowly, like a photograph developing in a dark room. At first, it was just shadows and suggestions, but gradually the truth took shape with horrible clarity.I saw it then. The attacks weren't isolated incidents of random violence. They formed a circle, a pattern of containment that spoke of planning and patience, all anchored on one forgotten point that made my blood run cold.
The capital.
No, not just the capital. Something deeper, older, more dangerous.
Beneath it.
I stabbed a finger onto the map with such force that the parchment tore slightly under the pressure.
"Here," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "There's an old monitoring station under the city. Abandoned after the last leyline war, forgotten by all but the most dedicated scholars. It's not on any modern registry, but it's right where they'd need it to coordinate attacks of this magnitude."Varis's face darkened like storm clouds gathering on the horizon. "That station was sealed for a reason."
"Sealed," I repeated flatly, tasting the inadequacy of the word. "But not destroyed."Liora's hand tightened around her sword hilt until her knuckles went white. The leather grip creaked under the pressure of her grip.
"They're waiting for you there."
"I know," I said, standing with a resolve that surprised even me.
Varis grabbed my arm before I could leave, his fingers like iron bands around my wrist."If you go down there, you may not come back."
I met his gaze, seeing my own determination reflected in his ancient eyes."And if I don't, they'll burn the kingdom from beneath our feet."
The tunnels beneath the Archives were cold as a tomb, their stone walls weeping with condensation that reflected our torchlight like tears. Liora led the way, her warrior's training evident in every careful step. The flickering flames cast dancing shadows against walls lined with dormant glyphs, ancient symbols that seemed to watch our progress with malevolent interest.The deeper we went, the older the markings became. These weren't the clean, precise glyphs of modern magic, but ancient, spiraling symbols I'd only seen in forbidden tomes hidden away in the deepest vaults of the Archives. They spoke of power and madness, of magics that had been abandoned for good reason.
I felt the weight of them pressing down with every step, as if the very air was thick with accumulated years of dark purpose.
"This place," Liora muttered, her voice hushed despite herself. "It's wrong."
She was right. The sensation crawled across my skin like invisible spiders, making every nerve ending sing with unease.
The air was heavy with unspoken secrets. Watching us with invisible eyes.
We reached the final gate after what felt like hours of descent. It was a massive iron seal, inscribed with layers of warding circles that should have been impenetrable. The metal itself seemed to pulse with contained power, each glyph a word in a language older than memory.
But the wards weren't active. They hung lifeless and broken, their power dissipated like smoke on the wind.
They'd been broken from the inside.
Inside the station, the air was thick with static electricity that made my hair stand on end. The scent of old magic clung to every surface like incense burned in forgotten rituals, sweet and cloying and somehow corrupt.
The heart of the chamber glowed faintly with an inner light that hurt to look at directly. An array of silver glyphs stretched across the floor and walls, webbed together in an intricate lattice of lines and nodes that pulsed with alien purpose.
Alive. Active. Waiting.
I stepped closer, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples.
This was it. The source of the attacks, the spider's web from which destruction had been spun across the kingdom.
They were controlling the attacks from here, using the abandoned system as their staging ground, turning the kingdom's own forgotten defenses against it.
And then I saw it, and my world tilted on its axis.
On a stone pedestal that stood in the center of the chamber, surrounded by glowing wards that pulsed like a heartbeat, sat a sealed glyph-box.
Inscribed with my name.
My real name.
I approached slowly, each step an act of will against the terror that threatened to overwhelm me. My breath came tight in my chest, each inhalation a struggle against the weight of revelation.The glyphs flared as I neared, responding to my presence like flowers turning toward the sun. The light grew brighter, more insistent, until I could feel it warming my skin.
I reached out with a trembling hand and touched the box.
A sharp, discordant ring cut through the dawn haze like a blade forged from pure malice. The sound pierced the morning stillness with such violence that I barely had time to register its meaning before the glyph alarms followed, pulsing with harsh, flickering blue light that painted my chamber walls in sickening hues.
Liora was already at the window, her sword half-drawn from its sheath, the steel singing softly in the charged air. Her warrior's instincts had kicked in before her mind could process the threat, and I watched the tension coil through her shoulders like a serpent preparing to strike.
"They've hit the nexuses," she said grimly, her voice carrying the weight of a thousand battles fought and won.
I was moving before she finished speaking, my body responding to the urgency in her tone. I grabbed my coat from the chair where I'd draped it the night before, scattering the maps from Krael's Hollow that still lay scattered across my desk like the remnants of a fever dream. The parchment crinkled under my hasty movements, the ink still fresh from hours of desperate study.Varis burst into the chamber without ceremony, his usually immaculate robes disheveled for the first time since I'd known him. The sight of the composed archmage in such disarray sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the morning air.
"Three sites," he rasped, his normally melodious voice reduced to a harsh whisper. "Simultaneously. Southridge, Marn's Vale, and Thornbridge Crossing."
The words hit me like physical blows, each location a piece of a puzzle I was only beginning to understand. I froze, my mind racing through the implications faster than my heart could keep pace.
Southridge. That was near the iron mines, where the kingdom's weapons were forged and the earth itself bled metal. Marn's Vale supplied food to half the region, its fertile fields feeding thousands of mouths. Thornbridge had no obvious military value, but it sat at the junction of two leyline routes like a spider at the center of its web.
All three targeted at once. The precision was breathtaking in its audacity.
Too clean. Too precise. Too familiar.
I felt the chill before I even voiced the terrible realization clawing at my thoughts.
"They're copying me," I muttered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.
Varis's eyes narrowed to pinpricks of suspicion. "Explain."
I shoved the maps aside with trembling hands, revealing the nexus diagrams I'd sketched during my sleepless studies. The lines and circles seemed to pulse with their own life, mocking me with their clarity. "The sabotage patterns, they're mirroring the same structural weaknesses I corrected at Krael's Hollow. These aren't random strikes. They're designed for me to notice, crafted like a message written in blood and fire."
Silence filled the chamber like a held breath. Then Liora spoke, her voice tight with barely controlled anger, "You think they're baiting you."
"They know exactly how I work," I said, my voice growing stronger with each word. "They understand my methods, my thought patterns, my weaknesses. They're forcing my hand, making me dance to their tune."
Hours passed in frantic study, the three of us hunched over maps and diagrams like scholars possessed. My fingers traced the flows between the towns, mapping connections that most mages would never bother with. Trade routes snaked across the parchment like veins, supply lines pulsed with imagined life, and even old leyline tunnels long considered inactive whispered their secrets to my desperate searches.
The pattern emerged slowly, like a photograph developing in a dark room. At first, it was just shadows and suggestions, but gradually the truth took shape with horrible clarity.I saw it then. The attacks weren't isolated incidents of random violence. They formed a circle, a pattern of containment that spoke of planning and patience, all anchored on one forgotten point that made my blood run cold.
The capital.
No, not just the capital. Something deeper, older, more dangerous.
Beneath it.
I stabbed a finger onto the map with such force that the parchment tore slightly under the pressure.
"Here," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "There's an old monitoring station under the city. Abandoned after the last leyline war, forgotten by all but the most dedicated scholars. It's not on any modern registry, but it's right where they'd need it to coordinate attacks of this magnitude."Varis's face darkened like storm clouds gathering on the horizon. "That station was sealed for a reason."
"Sealed," I repeated flatly, tasting the inadequacy of the word. "But not destroyed."Liora's hand tightened around her sword hilt until her knuckles went white. The leather grip creaked under the pressure of her grip.
"They're waiting for you there."
"I know," I said, standing with a resolve that surprised even me.
Varis grabbed my arm before I could leave, his fingers like iron bands around my wrist."If you go down there, you may not come back."
I met his gaze, seeing my own determination reflected in his ancient eyes."And if I don't, they'll burn the kingdom from beneath our feet."
The tunnels beneath the Archives were cold as a tomb, their stone walls weeping with condensation that reflected our torchlight like tears. Liora led the way, her warrior's training evident in every careful step. The flickering flames cast dancing shadows against walls lined with dormant glyphs, ancient symbols that seemed to watch our progress with malevolent interest.The deeper we went, the older the markings became. These weren't the clean, precise glyphs of modern magic, but ancient, spiraling symbols I'd only seen in forbidden tomes hidden away in the deepest vaults of the Archives. They spoke of power and madness, of magics that had been abandoned for good reason.
I felt the weight of them pressing down with every step, as if the very air was thick with accumulated years of dark purpose.
"This place," Liora muttered, her voice hushed despite herself. "It's wrong."
She was right. The sensation crawled across my skin like invisible spiders, making every nerve ending sing with unease.
The air was heavy with unspoken secrets. Watching us with invisible eyes.
We reached the final gate after what felt like hours of descent. It was a massive iron seal, inscribed with layers of warding circles that should have been impenetrable. The metal itself seemed to pulse with contained power, each glyph a word in a language older than memory.
But the wards weren't active. They hung lifeless and broken, their power dissipated like smoke on the wind.
They'd been broken from the inside.
Inside the station, the air was thick with static electricity that made my hair stand on end. The scent of old magic clung to every surface like incense burned in forgotten rituals, sweet and cloying and somehow corrupt.
The heart of the chamber glowed faintly with an inner light that hurt to look at directly. An array of silver glyphs stretched across the floor and walls, webbed together in an intricate lattice of lines and nodes that pulsed with alien purpose.
Alive. Active. Waiting.
I stepped closer, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples.
This was it. The source of the attacks, the spider's web from which destruction had been spun across the kingdom.
They were controlling the attacks from here, using the abandoned system as their staging ground, turning the kingdom's own forgotten defenses against it.
And then I saw it, and my world tilted on its axis.
On a stone pedestal that stood in the center of the chamber, surrounded by glowing wards that pulsed like a heartbeat, sat a sealed glyph-box.
Inscribed with my name.
My real name.
I approached slowly, each step an act of will against the terror that threatened to overwhelm me. My breath came tight in my chest, each inhalation a struggle against the weight of revelation.The glyphs flared as I neared, responding to my presence like flowers turning toward the sun. The light grew brighter, more insistent, until I could feel it warming my skin.
I reached out with a trembling hand and touched the box.
It opened with a hiss like escaping steam, releasing a thin wisp of light that coiled around my fingers like a serpent. And with the light came a voice.
Faint at first, distorted by distance and time, but unmistakably speaking to me."You've always loved puzzles, haven't you, Riku Aoyama?"
The air vanished from my lungs as if I'd been struck by lightning.
The voice continued, calm and mocking, each word a needle driven into my soul.
"Did you think your arrival here was random? That your talents merely caught the eyes of desperate summoners seeking salvation?"
The chamber around me seemed to shrink, every word tightening like a noose around my throat."We've been watching you for a long, long time. Long before you even knew this world existed."The words hit something deep within me, a door I hadn't opened in months. A door I'd thought was locked forever.
Suddenly, I was back. Not in the leyline chambers with their alien magic and impossible architecture. Not in the kingdom with its medieval struggles and fantasy politics.
In Tokyo. In my old life.
My old apartment, cluttered with books that promised knowledge I'd never quite grasp, half-eaten meals that spoke of a life lived in desperate solitude, and glowing monitors that had been my only companions in the endless nights.
Rain against the window, each drop a percussion beat in the symphony of my isolation. A cold, blue glow from the streetlights outside, painting everything in shades of loneliness.
Me. Riku Aoyama. Hunched over a screen like a modern-day monk, solving equations no one else would touch. Another all-nighter fueled by caffeine and stubborn pride. Another deadline no one asked me to meet but myself.
I could hear my own voice in the memory, a bitter mutter that echoed across the years:"I've always loved puzzles, haven't I?"
The same words. The exact same words.
Then it shattered like glass, and I was back in the chamber, gasping like a man pulled from deep water.
Liora was shouting, but her words blurred under the rising hum of magic that filled the air with electric tension.
The glyphs around the room ignited in sequence, each one blazing to life with malevolent purpose.A self-destruct sequence. They were going to bury the evidence with us inside.
"They're collapsing the station," I rasped, grabbing the maps and whatever records I could reach with desperate hands.
Liora yanked me upright, half-dragging me toward the exit as the walls began to shake around us.Behind us, the ancient station committed suicide in a symphony of destruction. Stone split with sounds like breaking bones, glyphs screaming as they tore themselves apart, centuries of accumulated power releasing itself in one final, devastating moment.
We barely made it out before the entire station collapsed, sealing the tunnels behind us in a rush of smoke and dust that choked the air with the debris of secrets.
We stumbled into the cold night air, coughing, bruised, but miraculously alive.I still held the sealed message in my hand, its words burned into my mind like a brand.Liora's face was pale under the moonlight, her usual composure shattered by what she'd witnessed.
"They knew you," she said softly, horror creeping into her voice like poison. "Your real name, your past, everything."
He glanced at the ruins and then back at me, his ancient eyes seeing far too much.
"They led you there."
"I know."
Liora's gaze didn't waver, her loyalty unshaken despite the impossibility of what she'd witnessed.
"What now?"
I looked back at the collapsed tunnels, at the glowing remnants of the glyphs still burned into my vision like afterimages of a nightmare.
"They knew me before I ever knew them," I said, my voice low and steady with newfound resolve.
"This wasn't an accident. None of it was."
I closed my fist around the message, feeling its weight like a stone in my palm.
"They summoned me here for a reason."
And now I was going to find out what that reason was, no matter the cost.
Faint at first, distorted by distance and time, but unmistakably speaking to me."You've always loved puzzles, haven't you, Riku Aoyama?"
The air vanished from my lungs as if I'd been struck by lightning.
The voice continued, calm and mocking, each word a needle driven into my soul.
"Did you think your arrival here was random? That your talents merely caught the eyes of desperate summoners seeking salvation?"
The chamber around me seemed to shrink, every word tightening like a noose around my throat."We've been watching you for a long, long time. Long before you even knew this world existed."The words hit something deep within me, a door I hadn't opened in months. A door I'd thought was locked forever.
Suddenly, I was back. Not in the leyline chambers with their alien magic and impossible architecture. Not in the kingdom with its medieval struggles and fantasy politics.
In Tokyo. In my old life.
My old apartment, cluttered with books that promised knowledge I'd never quite grasp, half-eaten meals that spoke of a life lived in desperate solitude, and glowing monitors that had been my only companions in the endless nights.
Rain against the window, each drop a percussion beat in the symphony of my isolation. A cold, blue glow from the streetlights outside, painting everything in shades of loneliness.
Me. Riku Aoyama. Hunched over a screen like a modern-day monk, solving equations no one else would touch. Another all-nighter fueled by caffeine and stubborn pride. Another deadline no one asked me to meet but myself.
I could hear my own voice in the memory, a bitter mutter that echoed across the years:"I've always loved puzzles, haven't I?"
The same words. The exact same words.
Then it shattered like glass, and I was back in the chamber, gasping like a man pulled from deep water.
Liora was shouting, but her words blurred under the rising hum of magic that filled the air with electric tension.
The glyphs around the room ignited in sequence, each one blazing to life with malevolent purpose.A self-destruct sequence. They were going to bury the evidence with us inside.
"They're collapsing the station," I rasped, grabbing the maps and whatever records I could reach with desperate hands.
Liora yanked me upright, half-dragging me toward the exit as the walls began to shake around us.Behind us, the ancient station committed suicide in a symphony of destruction. Stone split with sounds like breaking bones, glyphs screaming as they tore themselves apart, centuries of accumulated power releasing itself in one final, devastating moment.
We barely made it out before the entire station collapsed, sealing the tunnels behind us in a rush of smoke and dust that choked the air with the debris of secrets.
We stumbled into the cold night air, coughing, bruised, but miraculously alive.I still held the sealed message in my hand, its words burned into my mind like a brand.Liora's face was pale under the moonlight, her usual composure shattered by what she'd witnessed.
"They knew you," she said softly, horror creeping into her voice like poison. "Your real name, your past, everything."
He glanced at the ruins and then back at me, his ancient eyes seeing far too much.
"They led you there."
"I know."
Liora's gaze didn't waver, her loyalty unshaken despite the impossibility of what she'd witnessed.
"What now?"
I looked back at the collapsed tunnels, at the glowing remnants of the glyphs still burned into my vision like afterimages of a nightmare.
"They knew me before I ever knew them," I said, my voice low and steady with newfound resolve.
"This wasn't an accident. None of it was."
I closed my fist around the message, feeling its weight like a stone in my palm.
"They summoned me here for a reason."
And now I was going to find out what that reason was, no matter the cost.
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